To: Ibexx who wrote (71251 ) 10/10/1998 6:27:00 PM From: nihil Read Replies (1) | Respond to
OT Ibexx -- I agree it is time for reflectionutilitarians -- who believe that right and wrong should be measured in terms of the net effect of an act or rule on the happiness of all moral agents, and deontologists -- who believe that right and wrong should be defined in terms of the obligation to obey objective rules. Most utilitarians ( including you and me I think) are at least uneasy about the existence or at least validity of supposed absolutes), while most deontologists try to believe that there is only one absolute moral standard and they know what it is, as variegated as it may appear to the Taliban, the Christian Right, and the Hasidim. We (pardon me for speaking of us)generally leave other people alone to do as they will unless they injure us, or injure others. If others violate the Ten Commandments, or Leviticus, or the Koran, or a categorical imperative we say "too bad! but not our problem." If they injure other people, we try to stop them if the injured can't help themselves and are badly enough hurt. Personally, I am very happy with this position. I feel sorry for Monica, like the woman taken adultery, and like One much less foregiving than I, I will not even say "sin no more." Certainly she doesn't need me to cast a stone at her or to give her moral advice. I might be able to her on a book contract, however. I don't feel very sorry for Hillary, she must have known who she was marrying, for richer for poorer, for better for worse. Taken all in, she has had a more thrilling and satisfying life than if she had married some corporate lawyer. I do feel sorry for Bill. He is obviously a man with terrible impulse control and overpowering sexual drive. I do not believe he is self-destructive, and think he is over-sexed. In most primitive cultures he would have been a great tribal leader, had hundreds of concubines, and left a husky race of children. I believe absolutely that he is not to blame for his failure to satisfy the sexual standards of a rural Protestant sect. He was not trained to confess and be absolved -- I blame that on his secular undergraduate education at Georgetown, and to Oxford's departure from the Old Church, 450 years ago. As one of the American people who twice elected him President knowing that he had the morals of a tomcat, I accept my responsibility for his being a tomcat. As for his lying, it does not bother me in the least. No gentlemen discusses sexual relations with ladies in front of a grand or petit jury. As to his perjury, it was worse than a crime -- it was a blunder!
